The Heliconia
THE Heliconia is named after Mount Helicon, the seat of the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts and sciences in Greek mythology.
The Heliconia  is part of a family of about 100 to 200 species of flowering plants native to the tropical Americas and the Pacific Ocean islands west of Indonesia.
Common names for the genus include wild plantains.
Heliconias are grown as landscape plants, and can reach a height of between three to thirty feet. Their growth habit is similar to that of the banana plant, to which it is related.
The plant is known for its brilliant, colourful, flowering bracts, this being  a leafy structure just below the  base of the flower. The leaves are 15-300 cm (6 in-10 ft) long, oblong, growing opposite one another on non-woody stems.
The flowers are produced on long panicles, rising from clumps of banana-like leaves, sometimes very large or slender and consisting  of brightly colored waxy bracts.
Bracts can be orange, purple, red, yellow, pink, green or their combinations, and are generally so large and colourful that they almost hide the flowers altogether.
This keeps the flower’s sweet nectar from other birds so that only specialized birds can get to it.
There are some species of Heliconia which have upright facing flowers.
Then there are others  on which the  flowers   droop down from the main stem.
These are  called hanging heliconias.
Local horticulturalists say that both species are popular among plant lovers.